'Emergency': Sydney council seeks climate declaration

City of Sydney councillors will vote next week on a plan to declare climate change as posing a "serious risk" to residents, and that it should be treated as a national emergency.

Lord mayor Clover Moore will ask the council to demand the Morrison government responds by re-introducing a price on carbon and to establish a "Just Transition Authority" to assist employees to exit fossil fuel industries.

Sydney's lord mayor Clover Moore says it is time to treat climate change as a 'national emergency'.Credit:AAP

“Successive federal governments have shamefully presided over a climate disaster, and now we are at a critical juncture - we face a climate emergency,” Cr Moore said in a statement.

Assuming the vote succeeds, the City of Sydney will become one of more than 600 jurisdictions in 13countries to have declared a climate emergency, according to the International Climate Emergency Forum.

She noted that Australia's greenhouse gas emissions had increased for four consecutive years, suggesting federal climate policies "are simply not working".

The City of Sydney says it was the country's first carbon-neutral council in 2007. By next year, it will use 100 per cent renewable energy and plans to meet its 2030 target of cutting emissions by 70 per cent six years early in 2024.